


In Loving Memory

by moreculturelesspop



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Always Female Dean Winchester, F/M, Female Dean Winchester, Grief/Mourning, Infant Death, Labor and Birth, Male Castiel/Female Dean Winchester, Premature Birth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:55:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26959165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreculturelesspop/pseuds/moreculturelesspop
Summary: Now all they had of her was some items in a box in a bereavement office. Her hospital tag, her tiny knitted hat, her little onesie, her little blanket. They were all gifted by the hospital. All the items they had brought their child would go unopened and unworn.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	In Loving Memory

It was a quick nap. Sam begged him to go back to the bunker and lie down. The quick napped turned out to be a five-hour fever dream. He hadn’t slept in four days. He had tried on those horrible, squeaky plastic chairs in the doctor’s office. Deanna had slept, tired from the traumatic birth. She had rested her head on his lap and cried herself to sleep. He wasn’t going to leave her like that.

Sam said it was all be okay. He would look after her. Cas wakes up to three short but panicked voice messages from him.

_Cas you need to get here._

_She’s stopped breathing._

_I’m so sorry. She didn’t make it._

Last time he saw her she was at the centre of a tangle of tubes, surrounded by equipment. Her skin was almost translucent. She could move and she could strongly grip his finger, she could make little sucking noises and for a while, they hope. She recognised them. Knew their voices. He thought she would make it. She was a Winchester after all.

He speeds to the hospital, half asleep, his hair still sticking up in all directions. Sam is waiting for him in the hospital hallway. “She’s in the office,” he murmurs, hands deep in his jacket pockets.

Deanna is curled up in the chair, eyes red and skin splotchy. “Mr Winchester,” their doctor says. He sits down in the chair, feeling numb. They tell him that their daughter’s lungs could never form right. Respiratory distress syndrome, that’s what he calls it. He doesn’t care about the ifs and the whys. Not now. He will later. But now all he knows is that his daughter is dead. At three days old Maria was dead. They talk in short sentences. They sign forms. He and the doctor talk. Deanna says nothing. Her eyes are glazed over and watery, her knees are curling up towards her chest.

They move them to a little office made for these situations. They offer them a grief councillor, but Deanna shakes her head. They finally get left alone. Just Deanna and him. No daughter. He grips Deanna’s hand but when he opens his mouth nothing comes out. His voice is hoarse and his mouth dry. If he could talk, what would he say?

It started five days ago. It was during a John Wayne marathon. He was being a dick.

_Deanna stretches her legs on the sofa, enjoying the feel of her socked toes against the arm of the sofa. Her back is against Cas, his arm draped over her shoulder and casually rubbing against the swell of her belly. The TV is on, but they are both ignoring it, letting it play as backing noise. Cas is reading some history book, all symbols and theology. Every now and then he snorts and turns the page. She wriggles on the sofa, trying to get comfortable_

_“Still getting Braxton Hicks?” he asks, not looking up from the book._

_“Yes. It’s all squeezy and hard,” she replies, poking at her belly._

_“Drink more water,” he says._

_“You should care more, this is your fault.” She lifts her head back to look at him, green eyes lustful yet tired._

_“It’s no one’s fault,” he says._

_“One day I’ll be in labour and you’ll be sorry for not caring,” she replies with a huff._

_“You are not in labour,” She cradles her bump as she sits up, she curls into his side. His hand falls to her lap, the other gripping the book. “I was thinking James as a middle name would be nice.”_

_“For your vessel?” she asks, stroking at the tuffs of her hair around the ear. “It is a nice vessel.”_

_“Yes. He has brought me so much.” Cas finally puts his book down._

_“Whatcha reading?”_

_“How about a name related to your family?”_

_“No,” she smiles, rubbing the belly beneath her flannel. “I don’t want to give them the Winchester curse. Should at least give him a decent start.” She leans up and kisses at his neck, enjoy the new skin she could access since he became human. He had finally stopped dressing like a tax accountant around the bunker. He was wearing jeans and a smart khaki green shirt. He knew she liked it._

_“Sam is here,” he says, hand on top of the book, threatening to pick it back up._

_“He is out with Eileen. You know sex is good for a pregnant lady.”_

_“Can I finish my book?”_

_“Sure,” she whispers in his ear. She turns around and nestles back into the side. “I think I need to pee again,” she grumbles. As she goes to sit up, she suddenly stops, gripping onto the arm of the couch. “I really hope I’ve just peed myself.”_

_He puts the book down and presumes she is joking, but he can see the wet patch on her pyjama pants. The gush doesn’t stop, and he crouches down in front of her as she sobs on the toilet. She was 31 weeks, it wasn’t good, but it could be worse, is what he kept telling her._

_She was almost hysterical on the way to the hospital. Trying to call Sam and Jody. In the end she puts her head against the window and quietly sobs. The contractions are intense, forcing her to double over in pain. The nurses say there is nothing they can do to stop it, she’s dilated and expected to give birth soon._

_12 hours of labour and four hours of pushing. It was tough. The baby too small and weak to help her way out herself. Deanna tries to give up, tired and scared, unsure if she would ever see her daughter alive. Cas lies, tells her it’s okay, he doesn’t need grace to know that it won’t be._

_Maria Charlie Winchester weighed 3lbs 11. Deanna holds her, eyes glazed over in fear. She was alive but so tiny. She looked like an alien, unlike anything any of the books had showed them. Deanna was too shocked to do anything but hold and stare. They take her to the neonatal unit where she would never return alive._

Now all they had of her was some items in a box in a bereavement office. Her hospital tag, her tiny knitted hat, her little onesie, her little blanket. They were all gifted by the hospital. All the items they had brought their child would go unopened and unworn. Sam has gone back to hide them, he knows that. Deanna holds the tiny little tag in the palm of her hand.

“Dee,” he says gently, a hand on her the base of her spine.

“Don’t,” she whispers. Her belly is still round with the baby that was safe inside just a week ago. They don’t talk. Just sit in silence and wait to plan their daughter’s funeral.

Cas has to get rid of the car seat that sits in the back of his car. The Impala was no place to take a baby home from the hospital, he argued with her. He argued about a lot of things with her, maybe that was what brought on the premature labour. It’s as much a guess as everything the doctors theorised.

The car seat gets thrown in the trunk with no care. It’s not like it would ever be used. He can’t help but feel guilty as pregnant women and newborn babies surround him in the car park. Why did they deserve to be happy and Deanna and he didn’t? They had saved the world, again and again, they had given so much to a universe that would give nothing back.

Deanna says nothing until he drives her home to the bunker. Sam has hidden any sign of their child and her pregnancy. No charts in the kitchen, no books on the table, no vitamins on the tops and clothes in their bedroom. The only thing they brought home was a box of memories, which gets laid down on top of the desk. He watches Deanna sink to the floor in tears, watches her sob and scream, watches her hit the floor until her hand becomes bruised. Watches her curl up in a ball on the tiles. It was like he was watching himself from out of his body. He couldn’t find a way to say or do anything.

When he finally can bring himself to move, he sits beside her on the floor. He gathers her in his arms and they sob together. For years, humans crying baffled him, they would cry over tv shows and they would cry over people they had never met. He thought he watched enough heartache and pain to understand why a human would cry. He never dreamt it could feel this bad.

“I’m sorry,” she gasps into his chest.

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he replies through gritted teeth.

“I failed her,” she says. Cas grabs Deanna and shakes her, telling her it wasn’t her fault on repeat. “She was perfect and I couldn’t look after her. My body failed her. This stupid fucking body failed her.” And they fight, she hits his chest and he grabs her shoulder. She screams at him and he grabs her wrist. They leave bruises and scratch marks. He feels nothing but heartache.

For a while he thinks she’s not going to make it. She drinks and screams. She sleeps and rarely leaves her room. He fears one day he’ll wake up and she’d be dead beside him. Her milk still comes in. Her body still aches for the child she birthed. She still automatically cradles the bump, only to find it like jelly and empty.

They have a hunter’s funeral for Maria. She fought to live more than any of them had. Jody comes to offer her condolences, the only person to really understand what they were going through. He clings onto Deanna’s hand, terrified she was going to run into the flames to be with her child.

He remembers it’s an episode of The Pink Panther, some strange cartoon from before she was born, that makes her smile. Slowly she starts to eat at the table with Sam and Eileen. Starts to listen to music and watch TV. They make love and she lets him touch her. They start to talk about their daughter. About the experience. About maybe having another child. They frame a picture of them holding their daughter in the neonatal unit and keep it in their room. “I don’t want to forget she was here,” she would say.

“We won’t ever forget her,” he’ll tell her.


End file.
